I tend to read Rose into nearly everything Evelyn wrote, in this one because she repeats allusions to stem (Evelyn) and flower (Rose.)
Replace the candle, Nurse! It’s burning low
And death’s grim eyes are blinded by the light.
His darkening wings are flapping in the night.
his breath is hoarse with eagerness to blow.
Replace the candle nurse! Its violet flame
Forgets me not of rainbows, laid on snow
By sun-stung flakes, and dogwood trees that throw
Their scented spring song from a woody frame.
How could I think to stave the thirst of Death
With a candle’s slender strength? This is not spring!
An aching stem must yield its heart in flower,
For life has but a faltering claim on breath;
And skillful science makes no still pulse sing
When stardust measures out its final hour.
Evelyn Coffey
Evelyn told us that this refers to her death-watch with her mother. I have the sense that while Rose's death was unexpected and sudden, depriving her of physical presence, this was not the case with her mother. This is a narrative, of her calling the nurse to replace the candle as if that would keep her mother alive, that her life would be extinguished with the candle. She know that it was not true, though, and this the antistrophe, the argument, in the second stanza.
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